Salt City Seven: What’s Working (and Not), Development Minutes & More

Utah will need better shooting at some point from their ball handling guards. (via utahjazz.com)

Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.

A quick look at the big, burning question of the moment in Jazzland

The Jazz are exactly 20 games in, which makes as good a spot as any to take stock of what’s working and what’s not.

What’s working? Extending possessions. The Jazz score 26.6 points per every 100 of their own reboundable misses. That’s second in the league, and it’s the only thing saving their halfcourt offense, which is otherwise kind of a wreck. They are third worst in the league at scoring in halfcourt.

What’s not working? Guard shooting. The four main ball handlers — Jordan Clarkson, Keyonte George, Collin Sexton and Talen Horton-Tucker — are all shooting below 34% from three this season. Together, they are converting a combined 31.7% from outside, and that probably won’t cut it if the Jazz are aiming to be semi-competitive over the next 61%. And because guards aren’t making outside shots, it’s made Utah’s pull-up shooting game so anemic (28.9% on pull-up threes, third worst) that teams can guard pick-and-roll action a certain way and make it even harder for Utah to break the paint.

What’s working? Lauri Markkanen. That Markkanen’s usage and efficiency have mostly held up despite not playing with a natural table-setter is pretty impressive. His .625 true shooting is barely off last year’s .640, partially because he’s gotten even better around the rim (79.5% inside three feet). Per Cleaning the Glass, the offense is 7.4 points more potent per 100 possessions when he is on the court. Now he just needs to play: hamstrings can be touchy.

What’s not working? Passing the ball to players in different color shirts. The Jazz remain the literal worst team in the NBA at turnovers, per CTG. That obviously is costing them a ton of potential chances at the basket, but it’s making their work harder on the other end, too: 66% of their live turnovers result in transition plays by the opponent.

What’s working? Walker Kessler’s interior defense. After a whole bunch of fretting about Kessler’s start, the reality is he is right back at 2.5 blocks per game for the season, and his overall rim defense is a ridiculous 43.7% so far. That the best of any player with at least 50 rim contests (Kessler has challenged 87 times at the rim). The angst is understandable, though, as Kessler still has the worst Jazz net rating (-12.8), but that might be a function of combinations that don’t work. Like…

What’s not working? A lot of John Collins pairings. Collins has been one of Utah’s most consistent players. But when he is paired with literally any of the other 10 main rotation guys, the net rating of each of those pairs is -6.3 to -21.4. Some of this might start to look better if the guard shooting improves, as Collins looks a lot less comfortable on the court with multiple non-shooters. For example, when THT is the point guard and Kessler and Collins share the floor, the Jazz are -21.2.

It’s early… but not THAT early. Twenty games is a quarter of the season. There’s enough sample here to know what some of the issues will be that define the next 62.

Telling or interesting words from Jazz people

“When we go out there and compete, we’re trying not to treat it like a laboratory.”

-Will Hardy

It’s fitting that this came in answer to a question before Saturday’s game, since Saturday was the first time all season lottery rookie Taylor Hendricks has gotten burn outside of garbage time. The question (from David Locke) was about how Hardy wants young players to approach their playing time opportunities. Hardy explained that he’d prefer guys check into real games a bit more narrowly focused on the specific things they can do to help the team, rather than sheer experimentation. Individual development sessions, practices and of course the summer, he further explained, are the right place to really focus on growing the skill set.

“Obviously at some times you’re going to have to do those things in a game, test them out. So it’s not like you’re never going to stretch someone a little bit in a game,” he said.

But, he added, “it would be unfair to them and probably counterproductive to their development to just have them constantly testing a bunch of things in a live game, because the games themselves can be unforgiving enough at times.”

This kind of “basketball philosophy” stuff is wildly interesting. The relationship between early-career minutes and development is such a fascinating topic, and one I think fans are prone to oversimplify far too often. Hardy here appears to agree with a long-held hypothesis of this writer: that in the chicken-egg debate of development and playing time, he believes the former is not necessarily the result of the latter. Instead, the playing times when you’ve put yourself in a position (through other development avenues) to have something you can offer the team to help them compete.

Stats that tell the story of the week

105.3

The Jazz had their two worst offensive games of the year in the Memphis-Minny back-to-back: 96.8 outside of garbage time and heaves against the Grizz, 93.8 against the Wolves. All told. their O-rating is 105.3 in the games Markkanen has missed, which would be last in the league. Somehow, though, they’re 3-2 in those games.

18

Collins finally had a single-digit scoring game as a Jazzman, but not until after 18 straight with 10+ to start his career in Utah. Only four franchise players have opened their Jazz tenures with more consecutive double-digit games, and only Markkanen and Bojan Bogdanovic have done so since 1980.

2,018

Blatantly stealing this from mi hermano, but Saturday’s game was really something when the Jazz had just over half the career NBA games in their starting lineup (1,265) that they had absent in four players (2,018). Somehow they eked out the win anyway, despite a feverish push late from the Blazers (20-9 to force OT). 

Recognizing the best (or most memorable) performances from each Jazz win

Two pretty tough game ball calls this week:

Jazz 114, Pelicans 112: Walker Kessler. This could have gone a lot of directions, but ultimately what mattered is that this is the first time all season that opponents just looks completely afraid to challenge Kessler. That includes the final play, when human wrecking ball Zion Williamson U-turned from the paint and the Pels’ last try was a Brandon Ingram 18-footer instead. When the Pels *did* shoot with Kessler guarding, they managed just 3/13 (23%), including 2/7 at the rim and no threes attempted. Simone Fontecchio was also surprisingly good on that against Ingram, George led the way with 19 (including the eventual winning basket) and Clarkson had a season-high 10 assists.

Jazz 118, Pelicans 113: Omer Yurtseven. I honestly probably would have gone Sexton here. Not only did he lead the team in scoring (25 on 13 shots) and chip in 4 boards and 5 assists, but it was how important he was in the game’s defining stretch. During the second quarter in which the Jazz took control by building the 16-point lead, Sexton scored 10 of the Jazz’s first 12 points, all in a span of under three minutes. But the popular vote was so overwhelmingly in Yurtseven’s favor that I’ll reward him even though his case largely came down to a really good 2-minute stretch in OT: a putback dunk, a rebound in traffic, and back-to-back clutch stops. But his overall line (9-15-4-1-1) was solid too. Just know that I think Sexton has a right to feel robbed here, as does Keyonte (career high 21-6-6). 

Strong in defeat:

• Jazz 91, Grizzlies 105: John Collins. This was another team-wide clunker that made it rough to pick someone to praise. Collins was the easy answer as the leading scorer and the only semi-efficient scorer of the high-minute guys. The only other option was Kessler, with six blocks.
• Jazz 90, Wolves 101: Ochai Agbaji. Let’s go Och: team-high in minutes, and the best net rating of the starters, plus just a really solid all-around outing. He had 13 points, 4 steals, 3 assists, 6 boards — all nice numbers from someone in that role. Sexton (14-3-4, 1.75 pps) and Fontecchio (16-5-5, 1.33 pps) also had nice, efficient games.

Breaking down the Xs and Os behind a Jazz score.

Absolutely loved this set piece from the Pels game on Monday. This was the Jazz’s first possession in the second quarter, so surely this is something specific Hardy drew up in the quarter break.

It’s easy to get fixated here on the scorer, the passer and the screener. But the primary reason this play works is because of Agbaji’s cut from the corner opposite Kelly Olynyk. That not only occupies Kessler’s defender mentally for a half second, but it also leaves the right side of the floor completely without help defenders.

As soon as Larry Nance Jr.’s head turns to monitor Agbaji’s cut, Sexton knows it’s go-time. That’s when he veers away from looks like cut to fill the corner, and instead becomes a backpick on Nance. And look at Kessler’s timing on the rim dive: he sort of jogs in at first, but as soon as Sexton gets a body on Nance, he accelerates. Sexton does a good job more or less screening two dudes, but it’s not like Jose Alvarado is stopping the big dude here anyway. And then the pass from KO is right on the money.

A well-choreographed dance. What caught my eye in live game action was the Agbaji decoy cut, but there’s actually a lot here.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of action

Thanks to the In-Season Tournament, the Jazz have a mercifully light week. Here are a couple sentences about each of their two games before our next SC7.

• Wednesday, 12/6: Jazz @ Mavs. Dallas has lost five of seven, but in their defense it was a pretty rough stretch of opponents, other than a home loss to Memphis while Luka Doncic rested. The Mavs superstar was back for a home loss to OKC, though, in which he turned in a 36-15-18 line that barely looks real. (He and Kyrie Irving are +4.5 per 100 this year.)
• Friday, 12/8: Jazz vs. Clippers. The Jazz get their first look at the Clippers since they traded for The System. The fit with James Harden didn’t look awesome early, but suddenly they’ve won six of nine, and Harden’s net rating over that span is +10.5.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

Keyonte George’s next assist will be his 100th as an NBA player. That means that his average after 20 games sits right at a (rounded) 5.0, which it turns out is historically good. In fact, he’s the first Jazz rookie in exactly 10 seasons to dole out 5.0 dimes a game through this point.

George is one assist shy of 100 for his career.

George has a non-zero chance at catching both John Stockton (5.1) and Trey Burke (5.7) for the most assists per game by a Jazz rookie ever, but let’s not jump too far ahead. For now, it’s impressive enough that the 20-year-old is keeping pace with the other four most prolific rookie passers in club history.

Somehow it’s December already. Enjoy a lighter week in Jazzland as the holidays approach!